The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding (top young adult novels TXT) 📕

that; and so far from improving, I think, by leaving out him and his merry wife Joan, you have spoiled your puppet-show.”

The dancer of wires conceived an immediate and high contempt for Jones from these words. And with much disdain in his countenance, he replied, “Very probably, sir, that may be your opinion; but I have the satisfaction to know the best judges differ from you, and it is impossible to please every taste. I confess, indeed, some of the quality at Bath, two or three years ago, wanted mightily to bring Punch again upon the stage. I believe I lost some money for not agreeing to it; but let others do as they will; a little matter shall never bribe me to degrade my own profession, nor will I ever willingly consent to the spoiling the decency and regularity of my stage, by introducing any such low stuff upon it.”

“Right, friend,” cries the clerk, “you are very right. Always avoid what is low. There are several of my acquaintance in London, who are resolved to drive everything which is low from the stage.”⁠—“Nothing can be more proper,” cries the exciseman, pulling his pipe from his mouth. “I remember,” added he, “(for I then lived with my lord) I was in the footman’s gallery, the night when this play of the Provoked Husband was acted first. There was a great deal of low stuff in it about a country gentleman come up to town to stand for parliament-man; and there they brought a parcel of his servants upon the stage, his coachman I remember particularly; but the gentlemen in our gallery could not bear anything so low, and they damned it. I observe, friend, you have left all that matter out, and you are to be commended for it.”

“Nay, gentlemen,” cries Jones, “I can never maintain my opinion against so many; indeed, if the generality of his audience dislike him, the learned gentleman who conducts the show might have done very right in dismissing Punch from his service.”

The master of the show then began a second harangue, and said much of the great force of example, and how much the inferior part of mankind would be deterred from vice, by observing how odious it was in their superiors; when he was unluckily interrupted by an incident, which, though perhaps we might have omitted it at another time, we cannot help relating at present, but not in this chapter.

VI

From which it may be inferred that the best things are liable to be misunderstood and misinterpreted.

A violent uproar now arose in the entry, where my landlady was well cuffing her maid both with her fist and tongue. She had indeed missed the wench from her employment, and, after a little search, had found her on the puppet-show stage in company with the Merry-Andrew, and in a situation not very proper to be described.

Though Grace (for that was her name) had forfeited all title to modesty; yet had she not impudence enough to deny a fact in which she was actually surprised; she, therefore, took another turn, and attempted to mitigate the offence. “Why do you beat me in this manner, mistress?” cries the wench. “If you don’t like my doings, you may turn me away. If I am a w⁠⸺⁠e” (for the other had liberally bestowed that appellation on her), “my betters are so as well as I. What was the fine lady in the puppet-show just now? I suppose she did not lie all night out from her husband for nothing.”

The landlady now burst into the kitchen, and fell foul on both her husband and the poor puppet-mover. “Here, husband,” says she, “you see the consequence of harbouring these people in your house. If one doth draw a little drink the more for them, one is hardly made amends for the litter they make; and then to have one’s house made a bawdyhouse of by such lousy vermin. In short, I desire you would be gone tomorrow morning; for I will tolerate no more such doings. It is only the way to teach our servants idleness and nonsense; for to be sure nothing better can be learned by such idle shows as these. I remember when puppet-shows were made of good scripture stories, as Jephthah’s Rash Vow, and such good things, and when wicked people were carried away by the devil. There was some sense in those matters; but as the parson told us last Sunday, nobody believes in the devil nowadays; and here you bring about a parcel of puppets dressed up like lords and ladies, only to turn the heads of poor country wenches; and when their heads are once turned topsy-turvy, no wonder everything else is so.”

Virgil, I think, tells us, that when the mob are assembled in a riotous and tumultuous manner, and all sorts of missile weapons fly about, if a man of gravity and authority appears amongst them, the tumult is presently appeased, and the mob, which when collected into one body, may be well compared to an ass, erect their long ears at the grave man’s discourse.

On the contrary, when a set of grave men and philosophers are disputing; when wisdom herself may in a manner be considered as present, and administering arguments to the disputants; should a tumult arise among the mob, or should one scold, who is herself equal in noise to a mighty mob, appear among the said philosophers; their disputes cease in a moment, wisdom no longer performs her ministerial office, and the attention of everyone is immediately attracted by the scold alone.

Thus the uproar aforesaid, and the arrival of the landlady, silenced the master of the puppet-show, and put a speedy and final end to that grave and solemn harangue, of which we have given the reader a sufficient taste already. Nothing indeed could have happened so very inopportune as this accident; the most wanton malice of Fortune could not have contrived such